Category Archives: history

bikepacking, bikes, GPS, history, national park, UK

The Shipwrights Way

Leave a comment

With the January & February weather being so dire, my motivation to go bikepacking was low – lest I float away in the middle of the night. March has been, in comparison, very dry so far & the floods have receded in many places – so it was time to load up the bike and head out for a long ride, camping overnight. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled (online) across a new long-distance path (at fifty miles, it’s not that long) close to home in east Hampshire – The Shipwrights Way. Starting in the Alice Holt Forest, near Farnham – the trail uses bridleways, rail-trails and quiet country lanes mostly to follow an imaginary path that ancient oak trees would have taken to Portsmouth to be used in the building of medieval naval vessels.

It seemed an easily doable out & back overnight trip – I decided to start at the end (Portsmouth) instead of the beginning as it was quicker to drive there (I couldn’t be bothered being restricted by train times) & meant I was more likely to be wild-camping in the countryside rather than the city. It was easy enough to find free street parking near the seaside in Southsea at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning, I was soon riding along the seafront in the unforecast sun. This first section (for me, actually Section 12) of the ride was soon over as I was waiting for the small ferry to take me to Hayling Island.

Waiting for the Hayling ferry

Most of this part of the route (Section 11) follows a rail-trail, Hayling Billy, so it was easy & pleasant riding – with views back over the harbour. Crossing onto the mainland I was soon riding through the town of Havant – hoping I’d be in the countryside soon. Sure enough, it was country lanes & then a bridleway (an ancient drovers’ road) into the village of Rowlands Castle – the castle is ruins now. The next section (8) paralleled the main London Waterloo-Portsmouth railway line (a lot of the route didn’t stray too far from this, & I crossed it numerous times) north surrounded by fields. Plonked in the middle of one of those fields, on a slight rise & seemingly quite isolated was St Hubert’s Church – built in 1053. For a couple of hundred metres north of Finchdean the whole width of the road was completely underwater – a slow pace was best for not getting soaked; sandbags were still to be seen, as were pipes carrying pumped water to drain from numerous properties – it hasn’t rained for two weeks, it must’ve been very wet.

St Hubert’s church

Having left the coast some time before, I had been climbing for a while – albeit gradually. As I was expecting from a previous visit: as soon as I hit Queen Elizabeth Country Park (QEP) there was the biggest climb of the entire route, not the most fun with a loaded bike but easily manageable. This coincided with the sun getting higher & me getting noticeable hotter. I finally saw my first of the twenty new sculptures along the route – each relevant to history or wildlife of the particular area they are set. Of the twenty, I only saw about five – eight are yet to be installed yet, but I still missed quite a few. Immediately behind the sheep sculpture, the trees had been cleared to give a nice look over the downs.

Looking out over the South Downs National Park from Queen Elizabeth Park

The first I saw of the many new statues on the route – a Hampshire Downs sheep

It was a steep downhill section past chalk pits hundreds of years old (of which I enjoyed reading the industrial history) to the village of Buriton before a mostly sealed section into Petersfield – which handily had a market to provide me with lunch.

Buriton

Crossing under & over the busy A3 and then the railway again, into Liss I joined another rail-trail. This time, it was through a nature reserve & used to be the Longmoor Military Railway – that used to go from the mainline at Liss to the large military camp at Longmoor. At one stage it was a seventy mile length of track & saw a huge assembling of rolling stock to go to the continent after D-Day. I was still finding evidence of large sidings in woods many miles north. Annoyingly, the route is not yet established for Section 4: Lindford to Liss – so I tried to find a more direct way than the main roads. This involved some slightly damp off-road cycling trails & then I found myself on footpaths – footpaths aren’t a good idea with a loaded bike as the gates are extremely difficult to get a loaded bike through or over.

Most of the rest was through Alice Holt Forest, which was well frequented by families enjoying the sunshine – there’s also a very large adventure type playground that seemed very popular. I didn’t stop as I feared I’d not be able to weave out of the melee of kids if I did. Shortly after I reached the end (start) of the route at Bentley – stopping briefly for croissant, cake & ginger beer I turned to see how far back I could get. With eight hours of travelling time for eighty kilometres, I figured I could do the easier overall-downhill direction in six hours.

But as I’d dragged my camping gear all the way it seemed a waste of effort to just return to the car & drive home that night. So I had steak dinner in Petersfield and continued in the dark to QEP. Well dark by now, my dynamo (in the hub of my front wheel) powered k-lite front light was super bright & more than enough to light up the trail & blind oncomers; the charging system worked well in the day either charging AA batteries for my GPS or charging my phone (via USB). The steep climb up past the chalk pits was tough for legs that aren’t used to twelve-hour rides carrying a heavy load. At the top of QEP, after startling a large herd of deer, I found the picnic shelter that I’d noticed early in the day. With no one about, three walls, a roof and relatively flat woodchip floor was good enough for me – no need to put up the tent. In bed by nine, I was later woken a noisy pack of cubs (of the marauding boy scout variety) out hiking to an unknown (to me) campsite. Much to my relief they continued on after noticing the bike & strange man sleeping in the shelter – they were rather noisy.

An even more stunning day dawned Sunday – I was fed, packed up & riding by quarter past seven. I was right – it didn’t even take me two hours to get back to the car, although I opted out of trying to get the ferry as I couldn’t be sure I’d make it in time & then not have to wait an hour for the next one. I’m glad I wasn’t out long as I was much-overdressed for the sun & heat. Even so, I dumped my heavy load of camping equipment in the car & enjoyed a pleasant ride along the waterfront to the end of the route in Portsmouth at the Historic Dockyard. I always like the naval history in Portsmouth & I saw some different things compared to my previous visits.

A little off the route at Chalton

Royal Garrison Church, Portsmouth – fire-bombed in WWII, part of it is still roofed

So a great ride all-up, although I wouldn’t recommend it for the mountain-bike trails – I would recommend it for a mostly easy ride to link together a lot of interesting history, nice villages & scenic countryside. There’s so much I missed by not stopping more, I think it would be quite a pleasant walk if one was so inclined. Now to find the next overnight trip around Hampshire/Wiltshire/Dorset or somewhere suitably close by.

city, history, roadtrip, travel, USA

Boston

Leave a comment

Boston also, like Montreal, is a city of charming neighbourhoods – so I made sure I found one on airbnb to stay in.  As usual, my plan to see the city was to get downtown & walk a lot.  The four kilometre Freedom Trail is very well marked (follow the red line on the ground) & starts at the large Boston Common & the Massachusetts State House.

I got a little distracted & wandered around the Beacon Hill neighbourhood for a while first.  Even out in the suburbs in the dark of the previous night I’d noticed these odd fire call points dotted around – I suppose they’re a bit like the police call boxes that were once more common in London.  At over a hundred & sixty years old, it was the first system of the kind in the world – originally linking the various call points to the central Fire Alarm Office by telegraph signals.  Quite ingenious, but I’m surprised it’s still going as the call points were far enough apart to not really give any advantage over a phone.

I zigged and zagged a bit at the start of the Freedom Trail (which links sites connected to Boston’s large role in American independence) as I stumbled across the shorter Walk to the Sea – which provided interesting titbits of Boston maritime history & also took me down to the water’s edge. I wandered, soaked in the history & found a jalapeno & cheddar bagel – which I was most pleased with as that was my favourite when I made bagels, although I think I put more peppers in.

Old State House

Old Customs House

There seemed to be this small baseball event called the World Series in town & Boston was pretty excited about it – with Paul Revere below getting the Red Sox treatment.

The trail ends at the Bunker Hill monument, which was the site of an early battle in the War of Independence. From what I could work out, it’s a big monument to what was supposed to a strategically useful, but still big, defeat – the colonials held off the British a lot longer than they were expected to & therefore delayed them reaching some other objective.

Anyway, there are two hundred & ninety-four steps to the top, so I charged up them too quickly & then admired the cloudy view while I caught my breath – there are a lot of roof-top patios in the surrounding area that look fantastic for summer.

It looked like there were sufficient parks & paths to walk most of the way along the north bank of the Charles River to MIT – it also looked a lot shorter distance than it really was.

I then ended up on the other side of the river in amongst the crowds heading to Fenway Park for the first match of the series against the St Louis Cardinals.  Having the city’s Trip Advisor app loaded on your phone is always helpful for finding excellent places to eat – in this case a cafe in a large independent bookshop, the momos (dumplings) were superb.  Dark & a little chilly by now I continued the walking alongside the fens (a type of wetland & that for which Fenway Park is named).  I was rather tired when I got home after walking well over twenty kilometres in all sorts of different parts of Boston.

At breakfast that morning, my host told me that the Samuel Adams brewery tour was not that far away.  Jamaica Plain (where I was staying) used have twenty-odd breweries – few remain.  For some reason, I’d always thought Samuel Adams was brewed by a huge company – but the Boston Brewing Company had quite humble beginnings in the 1980s & might still claim to be a craft brewer, although when you’re the (joint) largest American owned brewery it’s a little hard to believe.  The Boston site is now mostly R&D, but they do good little free tours.  As far as manufacturing equipment goes, there isn’t much to see – but the tasting of barley & hops was interesting to see how different flavours get into beer.  And the last twenty minutes or so is tasting pitcher after pitcher of beer.  Possibly, I should have gone on the tour after lunch – needless to say the rest of the day was quite enjoyable.

More walking that afternoon – more local this time as close by is the Arnold Arboretum (managed by Harvard).  There were lots of trees to see & many nice streets to stroll down to get there.  Although I did cheat a bit & get a Hubway bike (the Boston version of Bixi).  There were a few streets near where I was staying that are still gravelled – very odd in the middle of a big city to find gravel streets.


Lunch was spent in Doyle’s Cafe, which has a close association with Samuel Adams (being the first to sell the company’s lager).  It’s all very old & a favourite haunt of Boston politicians apparently, the Kennedy family used to frequent the place. The kale soup was very good indeed, with a nice kick to it.  So far I haven’t mentioned all the Halloween decorations that I’d been seeing almost everywhere, as well the huge stalls selling pumpkins – mostly because I’m not really interested.  But in what may be the best thing as far as I can see about the holiday, craft brewers like to put out a seasonal drink – & pumpkin ale is ridiculously good.

I rode down to the river, crossed it & was wandering through Harvard in the twilight.  Lots of people around & plenty of impressive buildings, but not much to keep me from finding another bike & heading back towards Fenway.

I wasn’t really intending going to see what all the fuss was about at Fenway, rather hoping to spend whatever excess USD funds I had on outdoor gear at REI.  But they were so close to each other, it was worth a look.  Plus there was a Chipotle – always useful.

That was about my time in Boston – I’m glad I finally made it to what is a great city to walk & eat your way around.

around home, friends, history, vehicles

Kentish long-weekend

Leave a comment

After a big weekend of riding the previous week, where I managed to pull a muscle in my knee on the Saturday making Sunday’s large singlespeed ride rather painful, it seemed to a good idea to leave the bike(s) at home for the last long weekend of the summer. The physio sorted out my knee quickly, but recommended I do some form of exercise other than biking – a thought that hadn’t crossed my mind recently. So I went for a run & pulled a muscle in my foot – I promptly gave up running.

Not taking bikes, meant that the four of us could all fit in the same car as we travelled to a quaint 15th century cottage we had rented for the weekend – our base for a friends’ wedding. It’s quite fun staying in a house that is more than twice as old as the country you’re from. Happily, I also had a long weekend for my birthday for the first time in my life – a rather dismal day weather wise, we pretty much spent the day eating well too much. We also managed to fit a visit to Canterbury Cathedral in (I’d been before with Trish a few years ago, so as the weather was pants I didn’t really take many photos).  Eventually we settled on a huge roast dinner and if that didn’t fill me up – the two birthday cakes certainly helped.

Plenty of exposed beams

Kings Head Cottage – plenty of room for us all

Across the village green

One of the older houses in Chartham

Thankfully, the wedding day had considerably better weather than my birthday.  Laura & Luis got engaged before I started working here in the UK, so it was good to see all the plans that we’ve heard so much of come to fruition.  The service was all very traditional (dearly beloved, have & to hold etc.) and quite good fun, I still can’t sing very well though.  On seeing the wedding car, below, I immediately had to get a few snaps for Uncle Geoff back in Australia – I’m pretty sure Bentleys of such age are his favourite.

With a bit too much time to spare between ceremony & evening wedding party, we went down to the white cliffs at Dover in our gladrags – where we picniced on the beach, mucked around, went to the pub and then wandered a bit on top of the cliffs.

After the speeches was the dancing for the night – a céilidh.  Basically a gaelic folk dance, it reminded me of the (awful) folk-dancing endured at primary school – but it was miles better due to there being a good band, a caller to tell me what to do and no longer being scared of girl-germs.  But I still had little idea what I was doing – but it really didn’t matter as plenty others didn’t either.  A huge pig-on-a-spit topped the night off nicely; amusingly the happy couple drove off in a tuk-tuk.

engineering, history, UK

Blaenavon

Leave a comment

I managed to get my tent packed up before the rain rolled in for what transpired to be a utterly miserable day in the Welsh valleys. Just as well the nice bike ride was on the Saturday and I’d set Sunday aside for a couple of industrial museums close by in Blaenavon. While not nearly as extensive as the fantastic museums at Ironbridge, there was enough to keep me interested to want to wander around in the driving rain for a few hours.

First up were the ironworks, of which there were the hearths of the a couple of blast furnaces, a couple of old casting halls, the remains of lime kilns & charging floor, and the shell of a huge balance tower (a water operated lift for lifting carts of pig iron ten metres or so). The audio explanations dotted sparsely around were excellent in explaining what it was like for those iron workers. The site is of note for the pioneering of basic steel-making which enabled high phosphorus ores to be used.

A little down the road is Big Pit, an old underground coal mine (of which, there were of course many in Wales once upon a time) that is now the National Coal Museum.  It closed over thirty years ago and opened shortly after as a coal museum.  The big attraction is the chance to go down a coal mine.  It’s not far, less than a hundred metres down.  As it’s still regarded as a mine, our small group donned hard hats, miners’ lamps and emergency gas mask before we could enter and gave up any item containing a battery, matches, lighters etc.  The tour was very well done and most informative – nicely it hasn’t been sanitised too much for the public, so there’s plenty of opportunity to bump one’s head or fall over in the dark.  Not quite as much fun as my previous trip underground in to a fully operational pit under the Waikato River back in NZ – but interesting all the same.

So I only managed a few pictures of the cage and winding mechanism – with the weather, they’re really quite poor.

Back above ground there are a few things to look at – the restored bath house that the miners used has some good exhibits in.  A good visit & nice to be out of the rain.